Blogs

The article in the Times about Immersion versus formal class training was very insightful. I would have liked if it went into more detail about the game and the sample size, as well as a few other details that may have been significant, but the article did peak my interest. I have always heard that immersion is the best way to learn a language because you learn more than just grammar. I have found that friends who go abroad come back with a stronger sense of the culture and sound much more natural when speaking the language of the country. 

For this reason, I have decided that I would like to go abroad to South Korea sometime before I graduate so that I can learn Korean in the most organic setting. I know enough that I would be able to add to my foundation, which I believe is another important factor when considering immersion as a teaching tool. Additionally, I would like to learn more about Korean culture beyond what is seen on screen, which is my primary source of instruction. 

It was quite interesting to read that they believe immersion may one day be a useful tool in helping those with brain injuries. That was certainly something they could have elaborated on, but it seems probable and quite useful. I went on and looked up information about this topic, and I found an interesting website that touched upon it more in depth. 

http://www.brainline.org/content/2010/06/traumatic-brain-injury-benefits-of-speech-language-pathology-services.html

Check it out if you're interested!

KoreanWeddings.pptx

This powerpoint includes slides of the details of Korean Weddings. It is important to study because of the Korean Confucianism way of life. Weddings are the most celebrate Confucian ceremony in Korea and they are filled with many traditions. I discussed eligibility, dating, engagement, wedding ceremony, reception ceremony, and overall traditions. I also discussed each topic through a traditional and modern lens to compare them. The sources are at the end of the powerpoint.

I used several Korean words including:

Gyeolhonsig= Weddings

Hangug-eo yugyo= Korean Confucianism

Seon=Arranged Marriage

Gyeolhon jungmaein OR chungmae= matchmakers

Kung-hap= matchmaker's tool to read astrological signs

Yonae=Love marriage

Yakhon= Engagement

Hahm=box of gifts 

Noraebang=Song room/kareoke

Shinbu=Bride

Shinlang=Groom

Peh bek=Ceremony/Reception after wedding

Daechu=jujubes (fruit)

Bride's Outfit includes= hanbuk, korum, maedup, jokduri, yonji konji

Groom's Outfit includes= Sangbok, turumagi, paji, mokwha, samo

Koo Soo Sang= Noodle Banquet

Jung Jong= Korean toast with white rice wine

Kook Soo= Noodle

Dok/Yak=rice cake dessert

The article on Sociocultural Factors was incredibly insightful. There were several aspects of culture shock that I had never heard of before - particularly anomie. The term was new for most of us in the class, but we identified the term in context of our own experiences as second-language learners. The concept of feeling alienated because of the identity crisis that is stirred through being between two cultures and becoming familiar with one while distancing from the other is a very complex emotion. It was interesting, especially because I have friends who are mixed race and have described a similar feeling for their experiences. In fact, my friend who is half Japanese and half White has said that in Japan, she is perceived to be extremely American, but in America, she is undoubtedly not white. This seems to be indicative of the dichotomy between the two identities. 

I hope that when I go to an Asian country when studying abroad, I will be able to minimize the anomie that I experience. Although it is a part of assimilating into a new culture, I think it is more effective to fully embrace the culture and I will make an effort to do that. For example, I can be a picky eater, but when I went to Italy, my brother told me "When in Rome..." and I understood that I should experience the country as a native does in order to fully understand and appreciate my trip. I will try to do that when I go abroad eventually. 

The Culture Shock video that was created by people on this very campus was an interesting perspective. I haven't really met too many international students, and our interactions have been limited. However, the people that I do meet seem to be incredibly interesting and intelligent, with a completely unique background and perspective. The language barrier proves to be the biggest reason why a friendship is not formed as readily and easily as it is for people who speak English as their first language. That being said, I have several cousins that speak English as a second language and I know their hardships, therefore, I put more effort into getting to know international students here. It was odd to hear of their perspectives of the university, because it seemed so different from my own experience. It was valuable to see what they thought were important parts of their college experience, as well as what they think is puzzling, like the expression, "what's up?". I've heard that is incredibly controversial in its application before, and so I have started to make a conscious effort to make sure that I follow through in a conversation when that is said. 

In terms of academics, it was surprising to hear that the learning and teaching styles are so different in other countries. I've never thought of it that way, and I always attributed the international students' quietness to their shyness and own demeanor, but it seems that there are definitely other influences to consider. I can't imagine going to a country where raising your hand and being involved in class isn't encouraged - I think I would have a very hard time with that style of teaching and learning. As an American, I am very expressive and like to share my opinion, therefore, learning in a setting where it is based on rote memorization would be stifling. 

All in all, I am interested in getting to know more international students, particularly because they seem to have such interesting ideas and perspectives, as shown in this video. 

After practicing speaking with my instructor I began to grasp the basics of expressing liking for something in Persian. The most difficult aspect for English speakers is the addition of the particle 'ra'. Placed before a verb, the particle marks the use of the accusative case.

An example sentence is ‘I like warm weather.’ The sentence would read as Man hawal e garm ra hosh daram. Hawal means ‘weather’ and garm means ‘warm’.

With Modern Hebrew, I have continued to practice and review the basic conjugation of various weak verbs. I now have command over several common verbs and their infinitive, imperative and aorist conjugations. The aorist conjugation is often translated as the English simple present. Below is a list of most of the simple verbs I have learned to conjugate thus far. A few verbs among the list are to get dressed, to talk, to agree, to hurry and to dial.

Below I have attached a video I made highlighting some of the body parts in Dari:

The cultural projects varied greatly by depth, seriousness, and topicality. I was particularly drawn to the ones about Israel because I have a trip planned after this semester (just two weeks from now!) and I was very interested to learn about their culture, and in particular, the Israeli Defense Force. It is such a different country based on so many different ideals and representations, and it was great to learn a little about its defining characteristics. 

I also enjoyed the project about music that Caarn presented. He seemed personally connected to it because he listens to that genre, and it must have been a really interesting topic to research because it is so relavent. Music is also one of the things that I think are very universal in that anyone can enjoy another culture's music, despite language and cultural differences. Additionally, everyone perceives music differently which makes it particularly striking as a topic of study because what one person hears can be vastly different from another. So while I may have learn very ethnic sounding music, Caarn may have picked up on the similiarities that the music had to contemporary American hip-hop. This dichotomy is quite complex and definitely something that MLC 105 touched upon. After learning about anomie, I was able to identify it through hearing about the other languages and also when I studied my own topic. 

We all seemed to have a similar experience of learning more about something that seems simple enough on the surface, like smoking hookah, but then upon further research, learning about so many more aspects of it, like the social norms attached to it. 

The cultural projects were interesting and insightful. 

During this past week, I met with my language partner twice (as usual) and my focus this week was learning about how to tell time and how to utilize health-related vocabulary.  Since the topic of health is quite broad, I focused on learning vocabulary for body parts and common diseases.  To accomplish this, my language partner and I reviewed those vocabulary expressions and I then did a listening and reading activity on the GLOSS Foreign Language Center's website.  The activity was called "Your Health: Learning How to Deal with Health-Related Problems."  I was able to recognize the phrases in the audio segment well, but reading the passage related to health took me a really long time, so it was a bit disheartening...however, it did remind me, once again, that language learning is a process.  It took me a long time to recognize visually the new words for health, so on my own time, I made flashcards for those words. 

I also attempted to listen/watch a video segment related to health that showed a healthcare provider in the process of diagnosing a patient in a clinic in India.  The video segment was produced by the Hindi-Urdu Flagship Program at the University of Texas, and it was from the website "Hindi-Urdu Language for Health" (also created by the University of Texas).  Listening to the healthcare provider's diagnosis was really difficult because it was not meant for those who are learners -- she would use a different dialect (as would the patient), and it was a struggle for me to understand ALL of what they were saying.  However, I did recognize key expressions and the new phrases that I learned, so that was definitely a positive experience for me.  Here is the website for Hindi-Urdu Health, in case anyone is interested: http://www.hindiurduhealth.org/

In lieu of doing another video, I took a chance to practice my writing (with a dictionary but without a translator!) 

Artifact 3.docx

With Persian, I have continued to work with my instructor and language group members to form conversations based on present and past happenings. Having picked up some new vocabulary and verb structures, I am able to form a wider array of sentences and respond to simple questions.

The words shood meaning, it happened, and shawad meaning, it will happen, are infinitely useful in talking about the present and future. For example, the sentence ‘It rained yesterday’ would be deruz baran (rain) shood.

To increase my knowledge of Hebrew vocabulary and gain an increased familiarity with spoken sentence structure, I watched the film Alila, produced by Amos Gitai. Below are the verbs I picked up through watching the film:

to agree--להסכים

to regret--להצטער

to get, receive, accept--לקבל

to teach-- ללמד

to travel--לטייל

to rush--למהר

to wait—לחכות

to try—לנסות

to show--  להראות

I attempted to teach my grandma about the contrasting things in American versus Korean idioms. She has been in America for about 15 years, and she is relatively well-spoken in English. However, she always has trouble understanding idioms and figures of speech because they differ so much from Korean ones, and over the years, she has taught me Korean idioms. I thought it would be appropriate and long overdue for me to return the favor!

My learning plan consisted of analyzing a few Korean idioms and phrases and then translating them into English. More often than not, there was a comparable American expression. In that case, I would teach her that phrase by connecting it to what she already knew in Korean so that it could stick with her more easily. 

A few common Korean idioms:

1. refers to being glutinous 

2. something appearing to be better than it is

3. in a bad situation, getting worse

4. the power of being positive

5. being lied to three times

I found the parallels in those idioms with these following English phrases:

1. eyes bigger than your stomach

2. grass is always greener on the other side 

3. up a creek without a paddle

4. the silver lining

5. fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me

Although these are just a few, it was INCREDIBLY difficult conveying these to her because of the figurative language. For someone who speaks English as their second language, putting new meaning to already unfamiliar words is confusing and can be silly. She was able to retain a few, but mostly she remembered the funny part of the phrases and forgot the rest. So when I ask her about the idiom referring to the bad situation getting worse, she can remember it has something to do with a paddle but not much else. It's okay, we tried!

During this past week, I worked on creating my second artifact for Hindi, which was in two parts.  In the first part, I video-taped a conversation that I had with my language partner about identity, family, and some of her favorite foods -- basically a culmination of what I had learned in the past few weeks (I had just begun to learn foods, however).  She also asked me questions about myself, my sister, and basically just about our lives.

For the second part of my artifact, I wrote out questions that I thought would be good conversation-starters to discuss identity, and I also wrote a paragraph about my family and described them. (Please see blog entry entitled "Hindi Artifact #2" for my artifact).

During this past week, I also did two lessons from the GLOSS Foreign Language Center's website.  One was called "The Meeting: A Casual Conversation on the Street," and it provided reading/vocab practice for getting to know a stranger.  The second lesson was "To My Grandmother," and it was about a letter written to one's grandmother.  This activity gave me reading/writing practice with learning the different family relationship vocabulary, as well as expressions that are related to respect (especially respecting those who are older).  

Koreans are a very focused and hardworking group of people. I've heard things here and there about how stressful the Korean lifestyle can be whether you are a student studying in school or an office worker. Students sometimes study for about 18 hours a day. Adult employees tend to work overtime. Not just sometimes, but most of the time. There's something called Korea's "palli palli" culture. "Palli" or "빨리" means hurry. Interestingly enough, this isn't just a phrase, it is a way of life. You'll often hear people say the phrase "palli palli," telling someone to hurry up or to go faster. It seems that Koreans are always in a hurry to catch a bus or train, etc. Koreans are normally on time or even early for things. Their attitude toward time seems to be an obvious one. The phrase "time is of the essence" comes to mind. As Americans, we can relate. We've tagged time with the value of money. I guess Koreans have as well, but I feel they've taken it a step further. 

Where did this mindset come from? From what I've read, it comes from the condition Korea was in after the Korean War. At the time following the war, Korea was left in a poverty-stricken state. Self-preservation was extremely important to them. Only a few decades ago, Korea was one of the poorest countries. Now, it has the third largest economy in Asia. Their initial need for survival and growth ignited the flame, their desire to get back on their feet. This "palli palli" culture contributed to said goal and has now become embedded in Korean society. Only in 50 years, Korea has come so far thanks to this mindset, but is the stress level taking a toll on them yet?  

This week I’m beginning to learn how to express events that previously happened in Persian. To accomplish this it is necessary to be able to name days of the week.

Luckily, Farsi/Dari has a relatively intuitive way of naming days of the week. With the exception of Friday (jama) every day is formed by adding a numerical suffice to Saturday (shanba) for example, Sunday and Monday would be (yek shanba) and (do shanba) where yek means ‘one’ and do means ‘two’.  

To form a sentence, one could use a subject, day of the week a direct object and a past-tense verb to form a complete thought. For example, man se shanba senf raftam, meaning, I went to class on Tuesday.

With Modern Hebrew I am continuing to work on reading and understanding simple text. Below I have copied a narrative passage I can now fully pronounce (somewhat correctly) and understand in terms of meaning. (I apologize for the poor quality)

For my culture project, I have decided to explore the Korean school system. I'm planning to focus on middle and high school, but I'd like touch upon college as well. I became interested in learning about the Korean school system after watching a short documentary on the pressures that school students face during their time in middle and high school. I've heard a Korean student's school day can be roughly around 18 hours per day. As an American, I feel that 18 hours a day is way too much. Students go to school and continuing studying throughout the day. Some attend cram schools after their regular school. Others have tutors. This type of learning is very foreign to me and I want to investigate the topic more. I hope that it will help me understand the similarities and the differences between American and Korean youths. Korea also has one of the highest suicide rates. I'd also like to explore whether the Korean school system and pressure affects Korea's suicide rates. 

During week seven my instructor provided me with a very useful pack on ‘cohesive devices’ in Farsi.

Cohesive devices, such as conjunctions and adverbs, can link clauses and ideas together and creates greater fluency in speaking and writing. While my ability to converse and write in Farsi is still greatly limited by my knowledge of grammar and vocabulary, going through the packet of cohesive devices gave me not only useful speaking tools, but insight into how the language works.

To give a brief example, take the sentence “I’m not satisfied with my current situation.” In isolation, the sentence could come off as a bit blunt. Adding the word ‘actually’ or waukan to the beginning of the sentence adds fluidity to the statement and facilitates its connection to previous dialogue.

In regards to my study of Modern Hebrew, I am beginning to apply knowledge of the alphabet and basic vocabulary to reading short passages. Outside of children’s literature, Modern Hebrew is seldom written with indication to the placement of vowel sounds. For this reason I am focusing on reading sentences without the addition of vowels. By sticking to short passages consisting of mostly familiar vocabulary, I hope to gain a foothold into reading comprehension.

Cultural Post Five
A Splash of Tea Culture in Afghanistan

In Afghanistan not only are Trixx for kids. Tea with sugar or in Dari (chai buraa) is a popular breakfast drink among young children in Afghanistan.  While adults will customarily drink tea in the morning, the addition of sugar (bura) has a connotation with young children.

Tea plays a large role in Afghani culture. When invited to a home, it is customary to offer the guest tea to their hearts content. Black tea and green tea are the most commonly found varieties.

By mastering these simple yet crucial points of cultural interaction, a language learner can gain a foothold in the culture of study. 

Learning Activity Evaluation: 

For the "learning activity" I have created a worksheet on how to tell time in Norwegian (attached below). Time%20Activity%20.docx

I had one of my friends try to complete the questions. She answered correctly for the most part, however, the differences in how to tell time were not clearly displayed through the information provided. She at least got the correct numbers to correspond with the times, as well as correctly expressing "Klokken er ______" (it's ______ o'clock). I certainly wouldn't say it was the most effective activity, but it at least provided some rudimentary knowledge on how to express numbers and time. 

Reflection: 

So far I feel like I've made a lot of progress. I can feel a solid foundation forming for my Norwegian language skills. I'm certainly not confident in any of my abilities except for greetings and introductions. I've tried listening to more videos of people speaking Norwegian as I was taught that exposure aids greatly in developing fluency. Much to my frustration, however, I simply feel overwhelmed listening to native speakers rattle off in long complex sentences that I have almost no understanding of. I can pick out words here and there, but I get no general idea of what the person is speaking about. I need to find more elementary oral exercises to practice my listening and verbal skills. Anna makes a noticeable effort to significantly slow down her speech when she speaks to me in Norwegian and I need more exposure like this before I can advance to quicker rates. I've also largely ignored my written skills and need to put more attention on those, at least to express myself in a basic fashion. I hope to practice more diligently in the coming weeks to improve across all areas. 

Aside from immersion, I find that visual learning is often very helpful when learning or trying to understand something in language that you do not know fluently. The basis of my learning activity is to show pictures of several things (a dog, a watch, and a car), giving the pronunciation of each thing, and how to write each out. I feel this activity is particularly useful for those already learning the language, but it still can be used by someone who has never spoken Dari. However, the part of this activity that requires writing each word also requires an individual to understand the alphabet:

Sag (Dog)

Use the following letters:

س

گ

Now combine them:

سگ

Watch (Saat)

Use the following letters:

س

ا

ت

Now combine them:

سات

Car (Motar)

Use the following letters:

م

و

ت

ر

Now combine them:

موتر

Language of Politics:

Learning vocab through political marketing

In recent weeks I have made learning adjectives in both Modern Hebrew and Farsi a top priority. Grasping basic sentence structure and knowing key verbs can be used to hold basic conversation. However, without having an arsenal of nouns and adjectives at hand, sentences become dull and often meaningless. No matter how many opinions you hold, you may find yourself stuck in a world of ‘good’ and ‘bad’. “Tea is bad.” “My car is good” “I like rain, rain is good.”

Luckily, to learn Modern Hebrew one needs to look no further than official political party titles.

Here are a few Israeli political parties with names that also function as a useful word to keep in one’s vocab arsenal.

Likud=consolidation (useful for making speeches!)

HaAvoda=The Work  (work=avoda)

Hadash=New (Founded 1977)

Gil=age (not as in old age, but more as in ‘a generation’)